BOSTON -- Houston Rockets general manager Daryl Morey said the NBA's method for assigning draft picks needs an overhaul.
"We have to get rid of the marginal incentive to lose," Morey said Friday at the annual Sloan Conference on sports analytics at MIT.
The NBA places non-playoff teams into a weighted lottery -- worse teams getting better odds of a higher pick -- so accusations of teams tanking to get a higher selection have long been a part the league's culture. As the highly anticipated 2014 draft approaches, those murmurs have increased.
Morey finds the speculation justified.
"It's bad right now," Morey said. "I think last year, at the end of the season, I counted like two-thirds of the teams weren't trying to win."
Morey said several potential solutions exist, specifically noting the wheel created by Boston Celtics assistant general manager Michael Zarren.
The wheel assigns each draft choice to each of the NBA's teams over every 30-year span. The picks are rotated so each team receive a top-six pick every five years and at least one top-12 pick every four years.
Other popular solutions include eliminating protected draft picks and abolishing the draft entirely, allowing rookies to enter the league as free agents.